Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The Bush Administration’s definition of political success in post-Saddam Iraq has changed almost as frequently as their rationale for the initial military invasion. Gone are the heroically optimistic predictions of peace, economic development, religious tolerance, and multi-cultural civil society in Iraq, which would then serve as the first falling domino in an irresistible cascade of democratization throughout the Middle East (Danner 2002, Gaddis 2002, White House 2002). Chastened by rising military, financial, and political costs, the Administration now speaks more soberly of satisfaction with a fairly stable, some-day reasonably democratic government for the New Iraq (Diamond 2005, Wright 2005).
Despite the fact that the characterization of success has been a moving target, one definition of abject political failure in Iraq has remained a constant: the fragmentation of the country into separate, possibly warring ethno-religious enclaves. The Bush Administration’s emphatic warnings regarding the consequences of Iraqi balkanization have been echoed by the governments of at least eight Arab countries in the region.
The heuristic exploration of just such a hypothetically fragmented Iraq is the subject of this paper. Specifically, it will apply traditional geopolitical methodologies of analysis to assess the political, economic, and military viability of an Iraq trisected into Sunni, Shi’a and Kurdish political entities. In doing so, the paper will trace the roots of ethno-sectarian conflict in Iraq and compare Iraq to two divergent models of national devolution.